While America’s surveillance infrastructure turns inwards to identify domestic terror threats to the homeland such as those people who have guns, ammunition, food reserves or pay cash for their purchases, a shocking new report from Congress suggests that legitimate national security threats from foreign governments have been all but ignored by those agencies tasked with providing for the defense of the American people.

The year long investigation by the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services found that counterfeit parts from our nation’s largest financial benefactor are flooding into critical military defense systems that include everything from special operations helicopters and surveillance planes, to missile guidance and global positioning systems.

[The report] found a total number of suspect counterfeit parts involved in those 1,800 cases exceeding 1 million.

“Our report outlines how this flood of counterfeit parts, overwhelmingly from China, threatens national security, the safety of our troops and American jobs,” Levin said. “It underscores China’s failure to police the blatant market in counterfeit parts – a failure China should rectify.”

“Our committee’s report makes it abundantly clear that vulnerabilities throughout the defense supply chain allow counterfeit electronic parts to infiltrate critical U.S. military systems, risking our security and the lives of the men and women who protect it,” said McCain. “As directed by last year’s Defense Authorization bill, the Department of Defense and its contractors must attack this problem more aggressively, particularly since counterfeiters are becoming better at shielding their dangerous fakes from detection.”